1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for situation recognition, a system, a computer program, and a recording medium and, more particularly, to a situation recognition method and apparatus for recognizing a situation by comparing the current and past situations by using optical information, a system, a computer program, and a recording medium.
2. Description of Related Art
In a technical field of robotics, there is a case where a parabolic camera having a 360° field of view and image recording techniques are combined to perform location measurement on a robot, as described in the following non-patent documents 2 to 4 by way of example. Such technology performs detailed calibration processing for associating an acquired image or image group with a particular point in a reference image database space called an image atlas.
Matching of images which is performed for the above-mentioned association uses local and high-resolution images. For this reason, the image atlas need to contain information about all points in the map space, and further, the information at each of the points need to be represented in a form which does not depend on sensor orientation.
In a technical field of wearable computing, techniques for matching the current situation and past situations by using sensors or other similar means have been proposed as methods for realizing context awareness for triggering behaviors with appropriate timing, and so-called episodic memory for remembering what a user or other persons have performed in similar situations, or identifying a situation which repeatedly occurs or is newly occurring.
Information about “location” is very useful in terms of context awareness. Namely, even if the location of a user can only be recognized, it is possible to identify the current situation by using both the recognition result and information about a past situation.
Among the above-mentioned methods, techniques that do not use visual information are as follows:                radio-frequency tag (RF tag: Patent Document 2)        infra-red tag (IR tag: Non-Patent Document 5)        fiducial marker in environment (Patent Document 3)        global positioning system (GPS)        ultrasonic beacon        personal handy phone system (PHS)        802.11 wireless network        
[Non-Patent Document 1] Thrun, S., D. Fox, et al. (2001) “Robust Monte Carlo localization for mobile robots.” Artificial Intelligence 128(1-2): 99-141.
[Non-Patent Document 2] Betke, M. and L. Gurvits (1997) “Mobile Robot Localization Using Landmarks.” IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation 13(2): 251-261.
[Non-Patent Document 3] Jogan, M. and A. Leonardis (2000). “Robust localization using panoramic view-based recognition.” 15th International Conference on Pattern Re cognition 4: 136-139.
[Non-Patent Document 4] Pajdla, T. and V. Hlavac (1999) “Zero-Phase Representation of Panoramic Images for Image-based Localization.” 8th International Conference on Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns: 550-557.
[Non-Patent Document 5] Starner, T., D. Kirsh, et al. (1997). “The Locust Swarm: An Environmentally-powered, Network-less Location and Messaging System.” International Symposium on Wearable Computers, Cambridge Mass.
[Non-Patent Document 6] Aoki, H., B. Schiele, et al. (1999). “Realtime Personal Positioning System for Wearable Computers.” International Symposium on Wearable Computers '99.
[Non-Patent Document 7] Rungsarityotin, W. and T. Starner (2000). “Finding location using omnidirectional video on a wearable computing platform.” Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC 2000), Atlanta, Ga.
[Patent Document 1] U.S. Pat. No. 4,737,794, “Method and apparatus for determining remote object orientation and position”.
[Patent Document 2] U.S. Pat. No. 6,680,702, “Radio frequency resonant tags with conducting patterns connected via a dielectric film”
[Patent Document 3] U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,044, “Method for determining the location in physical space of a point of fiducial marker that is selectively detachable to a base”